Let's have a big round of applause for WRC's latest winner - Hayden Paddon! The Kiwi took a tremendous victory, defeating Sébastien Ogiér in a straight fight, and entered himself into the battle for the 2016 World Championship. 39 points behind the Frenchman, he seems like the only real challenger; the way he has been driving, I dare to say that he can put the pressure on the reigning champion. And the way Ogiér was behaving in the service park suggests that the pressure is already starting to mount...

Andreas Mikkelsen joined Paddon and Ogiér on the podium, receiving a good challenge from Dani Sordo who showed that Hyundai's performance is genuine. The Norwegian doesn't seem quite capable of challenging his teammates for victories, but his consistent form has put him ahead of Latvala in the standings.

Mads Østberg finished fifth; his worst result this season. Losing only to Ogiér in consistency, Østberg is sitting 3rd in the championship standings, which is certainly more than Ford could hope for. The only Ford driver to record a stage win this weekend was Ott Tänak; a nice show of speed from the DMACK driver, although he had a forgettable rally otherwise.

Deserving a honorable mention is Marcos Ligato, a local driver in a privateer Citroën who took an impressive 7th place, losing the 6th to Thierry Neuville by less than 10 seconds.

Perfect rally from Kris Meeke, and second victory in his career, making it the second rally in a row where Volkswagen is not the winner, and the third in which Sébastien Ogiér fails to make the top step of the podium. And speaking of VW - it's not usual to see Andreas Mikkelsen beating Ogiér, but that happened as well.

Dani Sordo got some points for unlucky Hyundai; Neuville ran out of gas on the stage, and Paddon had a frightening crash where his car burned to cinders and set the terrain on fire. It got even more frightening when Ott Tänak came to that spot - without a warning of the fire - to find half the road corroded. Off he went, through the wall of flames, and his car came perilously close to experiencing Paddon's fate - the crew escaped unharmed, but the Ford was very nearly consumed by the fire. Luckily, there was somebody with a 4WD car who was able to tow it to safety in the nick of time.

Eric Camilli scored a fantastic fifth place, and his second points scoring finish in row; after a shaky start to his debut season, this was sorely needed. It got a little too close for comfort, though, when he spun on the power stage: Jari-Matti Latvala - who suffered from power steering troubles - stayed behind only by a margin of five seconds.

The second victory of the season is very close for Hyundai in Italy as Neuville leads Latvala by 16,1 seconds, while Ogiér has fallen over a minute from the lead. Sordo is adding to Hyundai's fine run in fourth place, and Ott Tänak of DMACK Ford sits solid in 5th. Henning Solberg and Eric Camilli are having a close fight over 6th, while WRC-2's Karl Kruuda in 8th and Jan Kopecky in 10th are split by Martin Prokop in 9th.

In other news, don't spect to see Martin Prokop in WRC for a while. The 5min penalty he received for breaking a seal on the transmission pre-SS1 has destroyed his motivation and he has stated he may never return to WRC.

Rally Poland is in full speed with Andreas Mikkelsen in the lead after SS5, followed by Hayden Paddon (+2,6s) and Ott Tänak (+6,0s). Ogiér in 4th place is 9,3 seconds behind, Neuville 14,7s and Latvala 20,1s. There are still five more stages left today.

Meanwhile, while the official entry list for Rally Finland has not been published yet, the organizers have said that there will be 20 WRC cars entering the event!

Meanwhile, in Poland... Ott Tänak seized the lead yesterday and has now extended it to 10,9 seconds over Andreas Mikkelsen, who leads Hayden Paddon by 3,5 seconds. Thierry Neuville has overtaken Sébastien Ogiér for 4th, while Latvala is fending off the Citroëns of Stephané Lefebvre and Craig Breen in a close battle for 6th place.

This could be the first victory for Ford in ages, and the first one ever for DMACK. And it would be the first victory for an Estonian driver since the great Markko Märtin, who incidentally drove a Ford as well. If that happens, the roadsides in Rally Finland at the end of the month will be blue-black-white!

Ok... Here's VW's latest antigravitation technology in use:After 16/21 stages, the maiden win of DMACK and Tänak is getting closer, and the gap to those behind is growing. There are good battles going on behind the leader, as well. WRC-2 has been exciting all around, with Esapekka Lappi and Teemu Suninen on each others' heels. Yesterday, it seemed like Suninen was too tough to beat, but today Lappi has turned things around and seized the lead.

A heartbreaking finish for DMACK! A puncture on the penultimate stage dropped Tänak into 2nd place in the final standings, handing the victory to Andreas Mikkelsen. His second career win makes him the sixth driver to win a rally this season which is something rather unusual in modern day WRC.